(WWJ) Macomb County will be testing sewer water for the coronavirus.
Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller says the purpose is to find out which certain neighborhoods, or parts of a community are hotspots for the virus. The information will then be used to alert residents and target contact tracing in those areas.
Miller said the plan is to provide an online public dashboard, to allow local residents to see the data for themselves.
"Providing information not only to our medical professionals, but to the public as well, is foundational to fighting this disease. We believe there is a real opportunity here to be a part of the solution and we are working as quickly as we can toward that goal," said Miller. "This ability to detect potential hotspots will be critical as we re-open our economy."
MCPWO is working with Oakland and Michigan State universities on the project and will be providing the data to the Macomb County Health Department for review.
The project, which is being funded by money the county received from the federal CARES Act, will focus first on seven sample collection sites in Clinton Township. Samples at each site will be collected twice a week, then specially packaged before they are sent to Oakland and/or MSU for testing.
"Through this, we hope we can identify if certain neighborhoods or parts of a community where there is a hot spot. Our goal is to provide that information to the Health Department, so they can better target their contact tracing or other actions they may be able to take to reduce the community risk," Miller said.
The project is planned to run throughout summer 2020, and then be evaluated.
Assuming the pilot project proves successful, Miller said the project can be easily expanded to include other areas throughout the county.
"Obviously, this isn't something our engineers ever thought they would be working on, but our team jumped on this right away and put together a solid plan, utilizing the expertise of our local universities. We believe this project can provide critically needed information to our health care professionals," Miller said.
Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel is on board with the pilot project, which is is budgeted at $1 million.
"I want to applaud Public Works Commissioner Miller's willingness to partner with us on the COVID Early Warning System," Hackel said. This inventive approach to public health will develop a pilot early notification of COVID-19 indicators within our wastewater system. Partnering with our health department and university experts we are exploring a state-of-the-art water sampling technique to expand our understanding of the spread of COVID-19."
As of last official count by the state health department, there have been 6,528 COVID-19 cases and 779 deaths in Macomb County.
